Let's Hear

The club’s speaker on 17th April was Gary Coward, the Let’s Hear project manager. Let’s Hear is a community-driven campaign to enhance hearing in public spaces and is jointly co-ordinated by Hearing Link, part of the Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, organisation and Rotary. The objective of the campaign is to increase the number of hearing loops in the public area and their effectiveness. By so doing, it will give people with hearing loss more confidence to go out into the community and take a greater part in activities. Gary explained the reasons for deafness and how deafness affects people’s lives in different ways. An interesting fact was that undiagnosed and untreated deafness has a causal link to Alzheimer’s. Some 10 million people in the UK suffer from hearing loss while 2 million wear hearing aids and it is estimated by 2031 the number suffering will increase to 14.5 million; that’s more than the total population of cats and dogs in the country. Gary explained how hearing aids and loop systems work but then said that many loop systems, for various reasons including poor maintenance, cheap systems and lack of staff knowledge, do not work effectively.  The Let’s Hear campaign solution is to go out into communities to fix negative feedback and get the system to rights by checking systems, signage, working condition and staff knowledge – a hearing assistance audit. If there are faults in any system they can lead to a lack of confidence in the whole of the loop scheme. The information obtained can then be transferred to a website showing just how well different business and premises in the area cater for people with hearing loss thus enabling those with hearing loss to select businesses that can provide the assistance they need. Gary concluded by talking about how local groups can be set up and work with local networks to audit premises and disseminate the results.

For more information see www.hearinglink.org. No doubt soon Senlac Rotarian Barry Pick, the club’s co-ordinator, will be rallying members around soon.